Gay Warriors: A Documentary History from the Ancient World to the Present

by B.R. Burg, John Boswell (Contributor), Anne Gilmour-Bryson (Contributor)

In Ancient Greece and Rome, in Crusader campaigns and pirate adventures, same-sex romances were a common and condoned part of military culture. From the Peloponnesian War to the Gulf War, from Achelleus to Lawrence of Arabia gays and lesbians have played a crucial but often hidden role in military campaigns. But recent debates over the legality of gay service in the military and the "don't ask, don't tell" policy have obscured this rich aspect of military history. Richard Burg has recovered important documents and assembled an anthology on these often invisible gay and lesbian warriors.
Burg shows us that the Amazons of legend weren't just fictional. We learn about the richness and variety of their culture in documents from Plato, Seneca and Suetonius. From courts-martial proceedings we discover women warriors in seventeenth century England who passed as men in order to serve, and army officers whose underground culture fostered long-term romantic friendships.
There are also sections on the American Civil War, World War I and II, the contemporary U.S. military as well as sailors and pirates. This anthology will forever change the way we think about "gays in the military."

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Queer, LGBT, Gay, Historical

299 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1996

About the author

Barry Richard Burg (b. 1938) is a professor of history at Arizona State University.

Reviews

[Sineala · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an anthology of articles about same-sex behavior in various military groups throughout history, combined with excerpts of primary sources from the relevant era. For example, there's a Boswell piece (of course) on warrior-lovers in classical antiquity, followed by excerpts in translation of many, many texts about warrior-lovers. There are sections on the Knights Templar, the Royal Navy, and so on and so forth up through Don't Ask Don't Tell.

I have to say this is not really what I was expecting; I didn't know this was an anthology, and I was hoping for more examination of the texts themselves. My favorite articles of the bunch -- Sue Blundell on Amazons and Anne Gilmour-Bryson on the Knights Templar -- were the ones that really tried to engage with the texts of the time and the circumstances under which they were written and, um, how true they might be. Sure, as a sourcebook, the rest of it is pretty interesting (I liked, although "like" is probably the wrong word, the WAVE lectures on homosexuality from the 50s), but it feels like you're not getting the entire picture if you have, say, the Nisus and Euryalus passage of the Aeneid, up to their deaths, and then entirely omitting the "fortunati ambo" bit. That's kind of important.

I would kind of liked to have seen something about the Royal Navy that wasn't trial transcripts of courts-martial for raping 13-year-olds. I see that this was what all the prosecution was actually for, but surely sailors also did consensual things? Maybe? (One thing that was not entirely clear to me until I had read almost all the transcripts was that the standard of proof was that someone had to witness visible penetration; it might have been nice if that had been put into context with other developments in sodomy laws, because it was a lot more specific than I was expecting.) So I'm not really sure who this book is for (I kept yelling "more citations!" at it), but it was entertaining enough for me to read.

I also would have liked some more lesbians, but I understand that there are never any of those in history, and there probably are going to be even less in a book about the military.

[JLJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is, in other words, an ancient correlation not only of military service and homosexuality, but of democracy in particular with military service on the part of all citizens, which extends from ancient history to the present day.

Gay Warriors endeavours to highlight the presence of homosexual men and women in the armed forces, from Ancient Greece to the present.

I thought this was a very flawed book. There is absolutely no interesting point of view or analysis by the author, who merely presents historical texts that support the presence of gay people in a certain military force, at a certain time.

First of all, out of 9 chapters, 6 of them concern themselves with modern history, from the 18th century to the present, and all 9 of them only concern themselves with Western civilization. That is disappointing, since off the top of my head, I could tell you that in feudal Japan the warrior class, known to us as the samurai, practiced a form of apprenticeship where older samurai would take male apprentices as lovers who they would educate in the ways of the samurai, in much the same manner as was practiced in Ancient Greece. I'm sure other examples exist, but you won't read about them in this book who is very euro-centric, without acknowledging it...

You would expect the mere 9 chapters present to be robust and well chosen, but even then there are disappointments. The second chapter concerns itself with the mythological Amazons, and seems to confound women living in a warrior society with lesbianism ? What I mean by that is that although the texts provided gives us an insight into how contemporaries imagined (since there is no proof of their existence) Amazons, none of the texts mention same-sex attraction. Don't get me wrong, I find the myth of the Amazons fascinating... But why showcase it in this book about gay warriors ?

There's also a whole chapter about how the Knight Templars were maybe gay. The proof offered ? Confessions obtained through torture, by the notoriously trustworthy Inquisition ! You know, the same people who did the Witch Trials. Like all these texts made me certain that the Knight Templars were assuredly NOT gay.

Anyway, not particularly interesting, but I noticed some ideologically motivated review bombing, so I will still give a 3 star review to not affect the score too much.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting read of how the military and homosexuality have been interwoven throughout history.

The book covers a lot history but in a very disjointed style. Covering the entire world and over such a long history, the author does very little to connect anything together. Each chapter is its own segment of history. On top of that sometimes the author gets right down into the weeds of a particular story but misses the forest somehow. A good example is several pages of verbatim testimony from a single trial.

The book just ends with the start of Don't Ask Don't Tell under President Clinton. And when I say it just ends, it just ends with a DOD press release. There is literally no conclusion to the book. There is no summary of all this history that he just covered. There is no contemplation of what the future may have held at that time or where policy and Congressional action may take. No examination of modern armed forces around the world that have already made the transition with problems and solutions they used. The book just stops which is major letdown.

The book is still worth a read if to just a get a sense of the history of the whole issue.

[Art Wangchu · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a shallow, trivial book, conveying nothing academic, for those stupid good-for-nothing politicians to read.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting look into history.

[Katia M. Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very thorough collection of textual sources. I was very interested to see the drastic change on attitudes to homosexuality in antiquity and the recent past. We may think ourselves enlightened, but seriously are not.